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en-usTechdirt. Stories filed under "teenagers"https://ii.techdirt.com/s/t/i/td-88x31.gifhttps://www.techdirt.com/Wed, 27 Dec 2017 11:58:00 PSTMinnesota Prosecutor Hits Teen With Child Porn Charges For Taking Explicit Photos Of HerselfTim Cushinghttps://www.techdirt.com/articles/20171224/14543938878/minnesota-prosecutor-hits-teen-with-child-porn-charges-taking-explicit-photos-herself.shtml
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20171224/14543938878/minnesota-prosecutor-hits-teen-with-child-porn-charges-taking-explicit-photos-herself.shtml
Child porn laws continue to be used stupidly by state prosecutors to punish teens for consensual behavior. The ACLU has entered a case on behalf of a 14-year-old who sent explicit photos of herself to another teen. This teen then sent the photos to others. At some point, the state decided to step in. What the teen did was demonstrably stupid, but should it be criminal?

Using the law to set an example and shame some teenagers undermines the seriousness and intent of child pornography laws.

Minnesota statute 617.247 clearly states that its intent is to “protect minors from the physical and psychological damage caused by their being used in pornographic work depicting sexual conduct which involves minors.” Yet it is the state, not Jane that is doing the victimizing.

“I’m not a criminal for taking a selfie,” stated Jane Doe. “Sexting is common among teens at my school, and we shouldn’t face charges for doing it. I don’t want anyone else to go through what I’m going through.”

This is clearly a ridiculous reading of Minnesota's law. The law can't "protect" Jane Doe from taking sexually explicit photos of herself -- not unless this is the prosecutor's idea of "protection." If anyone else had taken the photos, Jane Doe would be the victim of child pornography production.

Minnesota statutory rape law is violated when a person has consensual sexual intercourse with an individual under age 16, although it is raised to 18 when the offender is an authority figure. If the younger party is 13-15, their partners must be no more than 2 years older, and children under 13 may only consent to those less than 36 months older.

Although it is possible this prosecutor may have decided to wield this law just as badly.

Because there is no such "Romeo and Juliet law" in Minnesota, it is possible for two individuals both under the age of 16 who willingly engage in intercourse to both be prosecuted for statutory rape, although this is rare.

As the ACLU points out in its brief [PDF], the prosecution of Doe serves no conceivable definition of "justice." It doesn't take a child predator off the street and it requires Doe to register as a sex offender even if she pleads to a lesser charge. It robs the term "production" of any meaning by stripping it of context, treating the willing production of explicit material BY a minor as equivalent to the non-consensual production of child pornography by an adult pedophile. The lack of an exploited victim means the prosecutor shouldn't have a legal basis for the prosecution.

But here we are, watching the state of Minnesota attempt to turn someone who took pictures of herself into a criminal. The National District Attorneys Association has suggested prosecutors limit pursuit of teen sexting cases and to deploy a "light touch" in those they do choose to pursue. But the prosecutor isn't interested in following the NDAA's suggestions. As Scott Greenfield points out, leaving sensitive issues like this up to prosecutors rarely works out well for the public.

The problem with relying on prosecutorial discretion to clean up bad laws, to not use the bludgeon in ways that no one really wanted, is that it’s prosecutorial discretion. The prosecutor can choose to use a “light hand,” or come down hard. We might disagree with his choice, but the choice is his, not ours. That’s what discretion means. If the prosecutor, for whatever reason, chooses to beat a teen into submission, he can. If the elements of the crime cover her conduct, then it’s a crime and she’s a criminal. That it’s stupid isn’t the point. This is law.

The law may be stupid but we can apparently always count on some prosecutors to be even stupider. There are a wealth of options available to deter Does from sexting in the future -- none of which involve criminal charges or sex offender registration. Parents, family members, schools, community groups… all of these can provide guidance for teens without having to involve law enforcement or a prosecutor's lack of discretion.

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]]>'light-touch'-of-a-prosecutor's-bludgeonhttps://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20171224/14543938878Fri, 1 Dec 2017 15:43:43 PSTEpic Sues 14 Year Old It Accuses Of Cheating In Videogames After He Counternotices a DMCA On His YouTube VideoTimothy Geignerhttps://www.techdirt.com/articles/20171127/14360838686/epic-sues-14-year-old-it-accuses-cheating-videogames-after-he-counternotices-dmca-his-youtube-video.shtml
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20171127/14360838686/epic-sues-14-year-old-it-accuses-cheating-videogames-after-he-counternotices-dmca-his-youtube-video.shtml
We called it. When Blizzard decided several years ago to try to twist copyright law into one hell of a pretzel in the name of going after video game cheaters, we said it was going to open the the door to other developers and publishers abusing the law in the same way. Blizzard's theory is that using a cheat in its games, particularly in its multiplayer games, was a violation of the EULA and created a copyright violation when the cheater continued to play the game he or she only "licensed." A deep dive into the actual substance of the copyright claims reveals them to be laughable, except Blizzard is rarely joined in court by its defendants, so no challenge to its pretzel-theory of copyright is ever put forward. Shortly after all of this, Riot Games joined in on this fun, deciding to apply the well-salted pretzel copyright logic to groups making cheats for League of Legends.

And, since it's not a real party until you have a third, now Epic Games is getting in on the action. And Epic went big for its first go around, deciding to actually sue a fourteen year old child who didn't make a cheat for Epic's Fortnite, but simply used a cheat. The fourteen year old was swept up in lawsuits filed against several cheaters for copyright infringement and, by all accounts, this fourteen year old was something of a pain in the ass for Epic.

One of the accused is a young man, who was banned at least 14 times since he started playing. Every time Epic took action, he simply created new accounts under false names and continued to play and cheat at Fortnite. What Epic Games probably didn’t know is that the cheater in question is a minor. The company likely obtained his name via YouTube or elsewhere, without knowing his real age.

This is the danger of suing end users using illicit cheats rather than going after the groups and sites that make those cheats available: kids play games. Kids also, apparently, agree to the very EULA that Epic is asserting triggers copyright infringement through the use of the cheat. Kids also occasionally have awesome moms, who angrily inform the court of all the reasons that this copyright suit is bullshit. The whole letter from the fourteen year old's mother is worth a read, but here are the most relevant portions.

Please note parental consent was not issued to [my son] to play this free game produced by Epic Games, INC,” the mother writes in her letter.

Epic claims that cheaters cause the company to lose money, but the mother doesn’t buy this since it’s a free game. Instead, she believes that the company is trying to blame her son for its failure to curb cheaters.

“It is my belief that due to their lack of ability to curve cheat codes and others from modifying their game, they are using a 14-year-old child as a scape goat to make an example of him.”

On top of all of this, a lawsuit against a fourteen year old simply for using a cheat for a video game is a public relations nightmare. On the other hand, Epic is in a horrible position. It would look odd to simply drop the suit against the fourteen year old because he's fourteen and still pursue the suits against the non-minor parties. Either what was done was either copyright infringement or it wasn't (it wasn't, but that's besides the point). The whole thing just looks... petty.

Meanwhile, as pointed out first by Torrentfreak, Epic has responded to the Mom's letter, which you can read here. The key argument that Epic makes is that it did not violate the law against naming a minor because it didn't know the kid was only 14 -- but then says that the mother's letter waived the teen's privacy anyway -- and thus asks the court for guidance on whether to ask the court to seal the information (which is already widely distributed) or not.

We did not violate Rule 5.2(a) or Local Civil Rule 17.2 because we did not know when we filed the papers that Defendant was a minor. Although there is an argument that by submitting the Letter to the Court containing Defendant's name and address, Defendant's mother waived this protection.... we plan to include only Defendant's initials or redact his name entirely in all future filings with the Court, including this letter.

This letter is to request the Court's guidance on whether the Court would like us to file a motion to seal the papers currently on the docekt that include Defendant's full name, re-file versions of those papers with Defendant's name redacted, or take any other remedial action.

Of course, another option would be not to abuse copyright law this way. Then Epic wouldn't have this problem.

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]]>what-a-time-to-be-alivehttps://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20171127/14360838686Thu, 22 Jun 2017 08:25:00 PDTColorado Voters Will Get A Chance To Prevent Preteens From Using SmartphonesTim Cushinghttps://www.techdirt.com/articles/20170619/15141637621/colorado-voters-will-get-chance-to-prevent-preteens-using-smartphones.shtml
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20170619/15141637621/colorado-voters-will-get-chance-to-prevent-preteens-using-smartphones.shtml
Some enterprising Colorado residents have turned a small tech panic into a stupid ballot measure. (via Free Range Kids)

"They would get the phone and lock themselves in their room and change who they were," he said.

With one of his sons, then 12, he thought the problem became bad enough to warrant taking the phone away.

"(With smartphones), the internet is always begging for your attention," he said. "The apps are all designed to addict you. ... For children, it's not a good thing."

Because parenting is hard, Farnum has decided to see if the state can't pick up his parenting slack. He has introduced a ballot measure that would ban retailers from selling phones to preteens, even indirectly. If this anesthesiologist can find 300,000 like-minded idiots willing to follow him into legislative infamy, his proposal could possibly become law.

To drum up support for his idea, Farnum has cobbled together a website that probably looks terrible on mobile devices. It certainly looks awful on the regular web.

And it's full of terribleness -- half-arguments and citation-less assertions, not exactly the sort of thing you'd expect from a board of directors composed of people with medical degrees. Here's just a few of the convincing arguments Farnum deploys:

Years from now parents will look back on our time and shake their heads and wonder how we allowed this atrocity. Allowing our children to be robbed of their carefree days of wonder, laughter, and normal natural development. Yes, they will wonder, didn't they see it?, didn't they see their children stop achieving, stop playing, stop laughing, ceasing to be free? Instead, isolating themselves in their rooms choosing soft and cushy electronic lives over their real ones. Didn't they see the damage?

Or:

Currently, parents are supposed to do everything, and the manufacturers, content and service providers, basically everyone in the whole industry gets a free pass. Parents are somehow supposed to be up to date on the current recommendations on usage from experts, and enforce these recommendations, plus guard their children everywhere they go. This is not only unfair, it is altogether impossible given the saturation of our children's environment.

Or:

The wild west free for all that we have now has left parents with little clear direction, and has caused incalculable damage to children. The American Academy of Pediatricians came out in 2000 with their recommendations, reaffirmed them in 2012, and yet parents are unaware, and children continue to be harmed.

FINALLY. A citation to something other than Farnum's gut instinct, or how the world should change to better accommodate his strained relationship with his sullen, withdrawn children. Something written by someone other than an anesthesiologist.

Or not. There's no link to these recommendations or direct quotes from any AAP report. It's as if Farnum believes you can just type something on the internet and readers are obligated to believe it.

The AAP recommends that parents and caregivers develop a family media plan that takes into account the health, education and entertainment needs of each child as well as the whole family.

“Families should proactively think about their children’s media use and talk with children about it, because too much media use can mean that children don’t have enough time during the day to play, study, talk, or sleep,” said Jenny Radesky, MD, FAAP, lead author of the policy statement, “Media and Young Minds,” which focuses on infants, toddlers and pre-school children. “What’s most important is that parents be their child’s ‘media mentor.’ That means teaching them how to use it as a tool to create, connect and learn.”

What a revolutionary idea: parents engaging in the act of parenting! But if that's not for you, there's Farnum's ballot measure [PDF], which is prefaced with phrasing guaranteeing it will never be taken seriously.

WE THE PARENTS AND CONCERNED CITIZENS OF THIS MOST MAGNIFICENT STATE THROUGH FIRST HAND EXPERIENCE AND MOUNTING SCIENTIFIC DATA HAVE COME TO BELIEVE THAT SMARTPHONES ARE ADDICTIVE, HARMFUL, AND DANGEROUS IN THE HANDS OF CHILDREN.

THE MANUFACTURES AND SERVICE PROVIDERS OF SMARTPHONES HAVE CONTINUED UNABATED TO PROMOTE THEIR USE IN A RECKLESS AND WANTON MANNER, WITH NO CONCERN FOR OUR CHILDREN'S HEALTH OR SAFETY.

OUR GOVERNMENT BODIES ON ALL LEVELS HAVE FAILED TO GRASP THE LEVEL OF ADDICTION, THE SEVERITY OF THE HARM, OR THE UNMENTIONABLE STARK DEPRAVITY OF THE DANGERS.

WE AS PARENTS FIND THIS MATTER TO BE SO WIDESPREAD, SO INSIDIOUS AND OF THE VERY HIGHEST PRIORITY. NO HALF MEASURES, INEFFECTUAL EDUCATION CAMPAIGNS, NEW APPLICATIONS, OR PROMISES FROM MEGA-CORPORATIONS OF IMPROVEMENT WILL SUFFICE TO CAUSE THE GREAT CHANGE NECESSARY TO RESCUE THIS AND GENERATIONS OF CHILDREN TO COME FROM THE CARELESS AND EXPERIMENTAL INTRODUCTION OF SIMILAR TECHNOLOGIC[AL] DEVICES AND ADVANCEMENTS BY PROFIT DRIVEN CORPORATIONS.

It's pretty much a conspiracy theorist's message board post, only with some nonsensical legislation attached. The proposal would require retailers to ask customers if they're buying phones for preteens and, apparently, refuse the sale if the answer is "yes." Retailers are also required to put up signage informing customers of the new state-enforced policy and train employees to dig into the details of customers' purchases. Then they'll have to turn this information over to the state.

(4) RETAILER SHALL VERBALLY INQUIRE ABOUT THE AGE OF INTENDED PRIMARY OWNER PRIOR TO COMPLETING THE SALE OF ANY SMARTPHONE.

(5) RETAILER MUST DOCUMENT THE RESPONSE OF PURCHASER AND KEEP A RECORD OF THIS RESPONSE.

(6) RETAILER MUST FILE A MONTHLY REPORT TO THE DEPARTMENT THAT PROVIDES A LISTING OF:

(a) THE TYPE OF PHONE THAT WAS PURCHASED EITHER SMARTPHONE OR CELLULAR

(b) THE AGE OF THE INTENDED PRIMARY OWNER AT TIME OF PURCHASE

This is a really disturbing addition, as it places smartphone sellers under a more pervasive form of regulation than sellers of other age-controlled items like alcohol, cigarettes, and porn. And it makes no sense at all to maintain these records, as the proposal contains no avenue of state recourse against parents who lie to retailers about the cellphone recipient's age.

Retailers who violate the law face steadily-increasing fines, starting at $500 and topping out at $20,000. Retailers are given an "affirmative defense" to use when accused of violating the law, but can only use this defense twice in a 24-month period. And it's not really an affirmative defense. It's really nothing more than a statement of compliance with mandated sales policy changes that can be used to shield the retailer from fines if it's determined to have violated the law.

Finally, to cap off the nonsense this is, Farnum's own site presents this contradictory argument:

It absolutely is a parents right to choose how to raise their child. But it is also our American parents right to form an alliance together and try to make manufacturers and service providers accountable for the mess they have created.

It is a parent's right to choose. Here's some legislation taking that choice away! And some sort of plan to collect reparations from local retailers for the evils perpetrated on society by manufacturers. Somehow this proposal managed to survive the scrutiny of state ballot officials, which doesn't say much for their judgment skills.

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]]>making-the-state-an-adoptive-parenthttps://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20170619/15141637621Mon, 18 May 2015 05:43:58 PDTSouth Korea's New Law Mandates Installation Of Government-Approved Spyware On Teens' SmartphonesTim Cushinghttps://www.techdirt.com/articles/20150516/14302631031/south-koreas-new-law-mandates-installation-government-approved-spyware-teens-smartphones.shtml
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20150516/14302631031/south-koreas-new-law-mandates-installation-government-approved-spyware-teens-smartphones.shtml
Considering the extent of its (most web-related) censorship efforts, South Korea must consider itself fortunate to be next-door neighbors with North Korea. Any time another censorship effort arrives, all the government has to say is, "Hey, at least we're not as bad as…" while pointing its index fingers in an upward/roughly northerly direction.

It blocks sites and web pages with gusto, subverting its own technological superiority by acting as a Puritanical parental figure. Not that it helps. Every time the government ropes off one area, citizens carve out another. Four years ago, it attempted to pass a law making government-approved computer security software installation mandatory, supposedly in hopes of heading up the enlistment of citizens' computers into botnet armies.

The app, "Smart Sheriff," was funded by the South Korean government primarily to block access to pornography and other offensive content online. But its features go well beyond that.

Smart Sheriff and at least 14 other apps allow parents to monitor how long their kids use their smartphones, how many times they use apps and which websites they visit. Some send a child's location data to parents and issue an alert when a child searches keywords such as "suicide," ''pregnancy" and "bully" or receives messages with those words.

Last month, South Korea's Korea Communications Commission, which has sweeping powers covering the telecommunications industry, required telecoms companies and parents to ensure Smart Sheriff or one of the other monitoring apps is installed when anyone aged 18 years or under gets a new smartphone. The measure doesn't apply to old smartphones but most schools sent out letters to parents encouraging them to install the software anyway.

Other trigger terms seem to do nothing more than give parents a reason to lock their kids up until they're old enough to move out:

Girl I like, boy I like, dating, boyfriend, girlfriend, breakup…

This new mandate is obviously creating a chilling effect. Some have noted the Smart Sheriff app may give government agencies access to minors' communications, all under the pretense of helping parents out. Nearly 80% of South Korean schoolchildren (teens and elementary students) own smartphones. That's a whole lot of communications potentially being delivered to law enforcement and intelligence agencies (if not also to schools and service providers).

As a result, smartphones are now no longer viewed as essential equipment by teenagers.

To get around the regulations, some students say they will wait until they turn 19 to get a new phone.

"I'd rather not buy a phone," said Paik Hyunsuk, 17. "It's violation of students' privacy and oppressing freedom."

Open Net Korea, which has tracked South Korean censorship efforts for years, has a translation of the law's stipulations, which not only requires installation of government-approved spyware apps, but also stipulates cell phone providers actively hassle parents who don't seem to be taking the mandated monitoring seriously.

(1) According to Article 32-7(1) of the Act, a telecommunication business operator entering into a contract on telecommunications service with a juvenile under the Juvenile Protection Act must provide means to block the juvenile’s access to the media products harmful to juveniles under the Juvenile Protection Act and the illegal obscene information under Article 44-7(1)1 of the ICNA (“Information harmful to juveniles”) through the telecommunication service on the juvenile’s mobile communications device such as a software blocking information harmful to juveniles.

(2) Procedures prescribed below must be followed when providing the blocking means under (1):

At the point of signing the contract: a. Notification to the juvenile and his/her legal representative regarding types and features of the blocking means; and b. Check on the installation of the blocking means.

After closing the contract:

Monthly notification to the legal representative if the blocking means was deleted or had not been operated for more than 15 days.

So, not only is it censorware and spyware, but it's also apparently nagware -- with telecom reps calling or emailing every month to remind parents to perform their duties as proxy surveillance operatives for the South Korean government.

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]]>please spy on our behalf, thx!https://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20150516/14302631031Wed, 15 Apr 2015 04:14:00 PDTTeen Blogger Arrested In Singapore For Being A Teenager And Posting A Video The Government Doesn't LikeMike Masnickhttps://www.techdirt.com/articles/20150412/07370730623/teen-blogger-arrested-singapore-being-teenager-posting-video-government-doesnt-like.shtml
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20150412/07370730623/teen-blogger-arrested-singapore-being-teenager-posting-video-government-doesnt-like.shtml"Disneyland with the Death Penalty," talking about the strange contradictions of the city state. It starts out with this sentence:

"It's like an entire country run by Jeffrey Katzenberg," the producer had said, "under the motto 'Be happy or I'll kill you.'"

Singapore is famous for both its clean, modern and high tech city... and the fact that it is more or less a dictatorship in which no criticism of the government is allowed. Talk to Singaporeans who have made it to the US for more than a little bit and you'll discover somewhat horrific stories about living in that country -- the kind of stuff that almost no one wants to talk about publicly. And in the last few weeks, the actions of the Singaporean government have highlighted just why so many Singaporeans are fearful of speaking out about what the place is really like.

A 16-year-old precocious YouTuber named Amos Yee was arrested last month, basically for saying mean things about Lee Kwan Yew, the country's founder and long-time Prime Minister -- though many say that he was actually the country's dictator -- who died just a few weeks ago.

Amos Yee's "controversial" video is still up as I write this. You can view it here, though I imagine someone may eventually try to take it down.

The title is "Lee Kuan Yew is Finally Dead!" and in it Yee unloads his feelings on LKY and his infamous tendency in going after anyone who criticizes him, including the international press. Yee more or less tells the government to try to go after him... and it did.

Watching the video, though, you see a typical teenager mouthing off to authority. That's what teenagers are supposed to be doing -- and Yee has quite a following as a precocious teenaged commenter on culture, both Singaporean and around the globe. The New Yorker has a profile of Amos, detailing some of his other videos that show him as a pretty typical teenager with opinions -- and the ability to create some fairly entertaining videos, like How to Speak Singlish (the modified English that some Singaporeans use) or his somewhat overwrought review of the movie Boyhood.

As the New Yorker's Nathan Heller writes about Yee:

Yee has all the hallmarks of a green and thriving mind; he is exactly the kind of person you would one day want reviewing your books, making your movies, maybe even running your country. Americans, who enjoy the benefits of free media, have a responsibility to take him more seriously than they take the government that has tried to quiet him for thinking freely in the public sphere. And those of us in the Fourth Estate have a duty to spread word of his ridiculous charges. If people like Amos Yee end up the custodians of our profession, the future of countries like Singapore can be brighter than their past.

And yet, he's facing the potential of three years in prison and many thousands of dollars in fines, based on "Penal Code Section 298" which forbids "the uttering of words that might hurt the religious feelings of any person," as well as a recent anti-cyberbullying law that the country passed.

We talk a lot on Techdirt about the importance of freedom of expression, and have called out other examples where people are pushing for laws against cyberbullying, with an expressed interest in stopping people from "hurting feelings" by unkind speech online. But when you have laws that make people criminals for merely expressing their opinions, you are shutting down the very way in which people learn and grow. Expressing opinions, having debates about them is a key part of growth, intelligence and innovation. Singapore wants to be seen as a modern and innovative country -- and yet at the same time it allows no dissent and no freedom of expression. It is a travesty.

Even some in Singapore have been willing to point out that this is ridiculous, and only serves to show the world that Singapore's ego is fragile that it cannot stand up to a bit of criticism:

What Amos Yee did was crude, rude and insensitive. But he is, at the end of the day, a provocative child playing at being hardcore. He’s certainly not the first – it was only the lack of access to YouTube that saved many of us from eternal embarrassment in our teenage years – and he won’t be the last by any stretch of the imagination. Is Singapore really so fragile, so easily threatened by offensive comment, that there was a need to charge a kid in court?

What Amos and the two protesters did were against the law – but it’s also high time that we think about the laws we have, and whether the trade-offs made make sense in today’s context. Is the Singaporean situation really so precarious that freedom of speech and assembly needs to be curtailed to such an extent?

Of course, given the way in which general deference to authority is demanded in Singapore, plenty of others have come out in favor of throwing Yee in jail. The New Yorker piece describes how ridiculous some of this has become:

In the days after Yee’s arrest, a slew of local celebrities, including three Singaporean starlet types, were interviewed about his videos on national TV. In sequences depressing to watch, they all sided with the state. “If you say that, ‘Oh, people can say whatever they want, all the time,’ then what about those people who are listening?” Joshua Tan, a young actor, said. Well, what about them? The suggestion that citizens should withhold political criticism for fear of offense is preposterous—far more embarrassing to Singapore than any videos by Yee could be.

We see this same attack on free speech in other places (often college campuses) today, as well as in certain areas of social media, in which people immediately leap to the idea that we need "new laws" to punish those who say things that people don't like, because "what about those people who are listening." Those people can be offended. And they can have their feelings hurt. Because that's how a free society is supposed to be -- where not everyone agrees with one another, and sometimes people say things you don't like. And that's good for the community. It's good for ideas and intelligence in that it allows for people to be challenged and to improve their arguments.

Singapore, apparently, wants to put teenagers in jail for acting like teenagers. And thus, it appears that little has changed since that William Gibson article more than two decades ago -- and that's a real shame. In the age of the internet, Singapore has continued to try to position itself as a high tech mecca. But if it can't handle free expression, it's going to find that a difficult image to maintain.

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]]>free-expression-mattershttps://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20150412/07370730623Thu, 2 Apr 2015 08:16:00 PDTPolice Chief Unable To Simply Do Nothing Over Reported Teen Sexting, Brings Child Porn Charges Against Four MinorsTim Cushinghttps://www.techdirt.com/articles/20150331/14510830506/police-chief-unable-to-simply-do-nothing-over-reported-teen-sexting-brings-child-porn-charges-against-four-minors.shtml
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20150331/14510830506/police-chief-unable-to-simply-do-nothing-over-reported-teen-sexting-brings-child-porn-charges-against-four-minors.shtml
Good, old-fashioned "sexting" has netted more teens some child pornography charges. Despite the teens involved claiming the photographed behavior was consensual, Joliet's (IL) police chief still believes the only way to address a situation he and the laws he enforces aren't built to handle, is to handle it as poorly as possible. (via Ars Technica)

“It’s a criminal offense, first of all, to post that type of material online, especially for underage,” Benton said.

For underage? Or by underage? (To use Benton's clumsy phrasing…) Because while everything recorded involved teens between the ages of 14-16, it was also distributed by these same teens. What happened here was only technically "child porn" and it involved no exploitation.

Still, Benton seems to feel the only way to prevent teens from doing something regrettable that might affect them "for years to come" is to treat this all-too-common (and apparently very normal) situation in a way that ensures any teen involved in sexting will be saddled with criminal charges that will affect them for years to come.

“The child pornography offense that was charged is in place for a reason, because we don’t want to accept that type of behavior as a society,” Benton said. “It’s making a strong statement, and I think it’s important to do so, to send a message to others that kids shouldn’t be involved in this type of behavior, and hopefully this will serve as a deterrent.”

No, it's in place to prevent the nonconsensual sexual exploitation of children. It is not in place to charge teens for consensual, normal behavior.

But, whatever. Now these teens who participated in activity that isn't explicitly illegal have been hit with charges for something that is very definitely illegal and that will likely affect them adversely until they hit the age of 21, if not for longer. It seems that if Chief Benton can't make the actual sexual acts illegal, he'll do all he can to criminalize depictions of the actual events, ignoring the logical dissonance of charging children for creating child porn.

(5) With respect to a property interest in existence at the time the illegal conduct giving rise to the forfeiture took place, he or she either:

(A) did not know of the conduct giving rise to the forfeiture; or

(B) upon learning of the conduct giving rise to the forfeiture, did all that reasonably could be expected under the circumstances to terminate that use of the property.

[...]

(b) For purposes of paragraph (5) of subsection (a), ways in which a person may show that he or she did all that reasonably could be expected include demonstrating that he or she, to the extent permitted by law, did either of the following:

(1) Gave timely notice to an appropriate law enforcement agency of information that led the person to know that the conduct giving rise to a forfeiture would occur or had occurred.

(2) In a timely fashion revoked or made a good faith attempt to revoke permission for those engaging in the conduct to use the property or took reasonable actions in consultation with a law enforcement agency to discourage or prevent the illegal use of the property.

If the local PD is creative enough to charge teenagers for producing and starring in their own child porn, it might be willing to seize the property "involved" in this consensual activity.

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]]>the-law-is-the-law,-dammit!https://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20150331/14510830506Wed, 24 Dec 2014 18:19:00 PSTUK Party Leader Attacks Satirical Mobile Game Made By Teenagers Interested In PoliticsTimothy Geignerhttps://www.techdirt.com/articles/20141224/08314329520/uk-party-leader-attacks-satirical-mobile-game-made-teenagers-interested-politics.shtml
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20141224/08314329520/uk-party-leader-attacks-satirical-mobile-game-made-teenagers-interested-politics.shtmlfurther to the right of the more common conservatives within the political system. Farage is known to be controversial, to say the least, in part because of some opposition to his party's policies (which probably applies to most leaders of political parties in general), but more so because he often times enjoys getting in front of reporters and cameras and doing really stupid things, such as going ad hominem on a group of politically-minded teenagers who created a satirical mobile game jabbing at UKIP's policies.

A phone app made by school students and featuring a character called Nicholas Fromage kicking immigrants off the white cliffs of Dover has been criticised by the Ukip leader, Nigel Farage. Farage claimed the game, developed by a group of sixth-formers from Canterbury Academy, was “risible and pathetic” and that it had “crossed the line”, despite saying he welcomed the opinions of young people.

The game, which is again clearly parody, is a cartoonish jab at some of UKIP's policies with regards to immigration. Without taking any stand on the issues being discussed by the game, it seems almost too facile to point out that Farage's taking on of the students, particularly going so far as to call their efforts "risible and pathetic", is ill-conceived at best. To leave those attacks with a footer claiming to welcome the input of younger generations simply serves to spotlight how dumb this is. Open dialogue ought to be a politician's best friend, particularly for the leader of a self-ascribed libertarian-leaning party. The school where the teenagers developed the game, thankfully, has the children's backs.

But the school’s principal, Phil Karnavas, has defended the app, which he says is a bit of fun to celebrate “brilliant, traditional British satire”.

"It’s a bit rich, bearing in mind some of the things the members of Ukip have said, for their leader to say they have crossed the line. Mr Farage can’t have it both ways. He cannot expect young people to engage in politics and then criticise what they say when they do.”

Imagine instead if the footer had been the entirety of Farage's response. What if he had simply said that he welcomes the input of younger Brits and suggested that political interest from the young is a good thing? After all, for all of the ribbing in the game, some of it quite sharp, the whole thing was framed by a disclaimer that the point was to create political dialogue. For Farage to pretend like some kind of line was crossed simply makes him look more childish than the children he attacked.

[Farage] said: “Those elements are risible and in many ways pathetic. I think I’m quite well known for having a sense of humour."

Pro-tip: if you have to tell a reporter about how everyone knows you have a great sense of humor, you don't have a great sense of humor.

An investigation into "sexting" of photographs between at least 31 teenagers in Rochester Community Schools is expected to take at least two more weeks, an Oakland County Sheriff's captain said Thursday…

Capt. Michael Johnson of the Rochester Hills substation said cell phones confiscated from suspected students — 24 girls and 7 boys, ages 14 to 16 — have been turned over to the department's computer crimes section for forensic review to determine who sent photos, who was photographed, who received them and if they were shared with others.

Similar concerns are being expressed by others in the community.

Meanwhile, an attorney for a Rochester Hills student and another involved in a similar investigation in Romeo schools, said the activity is much more widespread and she has heard the number is likely double that under investigation.

Attorney Shannon Smith said Michigan State Police are investigating reports of about 10 incidents in the Romeo school system unrelated to the Rochester cases.

"This is happening everywhere, it's over the top," Smith said. "I have been contacted by schools and parents elsewhere in Oakland, Macomb and Wayne counties who have found similar photos on their children's cellphones and want to know what to do about it.

The Oakland County Sheriff's Department has already confiscated 31 phones. "Ten incidents" unrelated to these 31 cases are being investigated by the Michigan State Police. With any luck, these investigations will continue to turn up even more phones, containing more evidence, and so on, until… well, until what, exactly?

[L]ouisa County High School was transformed into a crime scene, which it remained for the next month. Police cars sat parked at the school’s entrance, and inside, a few deputies who reported to Lowe began interviewing kids—starting with girls they recognized in the pictures and boys who had followed the accounts. [...] For the most part, the kids were “more than cooperative,” Lowe says. One person would give up 10 names. The next would give up five, and so on.

But pretty soon this got to be a problem. Within an hour, the deputies realized just how common the sharing of nude pictures was at the school. “The boys kept telling us, ‘It’s nothing unusual. It happens all the time,’ ” Lowe recalls. Every time someone they were interviewing mentioned another kid who might have naked pictures on his or her phone, they had to call that kid in for an interview. After just a couple of days, the deputies had filled multiple evidence bins with phones, and they couldn’t see an end to it. Fears of a cabal got replaced by a more mundane concern: what to do with “hundreds of damned phones. I told the deputies, ‘We got to draw the line somewhere or we’re going to end up talking to every teenager in the damned county!’ ”

So, at some point, an arbitrary line will be drawn to end the investigation. Charges may be handed down, if only to justify the use of police resources. High school students on the wrong end of the age of consent may find themselves facing child pornography charges. Students more than an arbitrary number of years removed from the age of subjects of the photos in their possession may end up similarly charged.

The temptation is to handle it as a criminal offense, hence the initial instinct of the Louisa County Sheriff's Dept. to view it as a "cabal" or "ring" before it became apparent that there was no unified, sinister force compelling this prolific creation of explicit photos. But despite realizing that trying to combat this as a criminal venture was fruitless, they still use a ridiculously skewed term when discussing sexting.

“I really don’t like the word sexting,” says Michael Harmony, the commander of the southern-Virginia branch of the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, which covers Louisa County. The term he makes his investigators use is self-production, which is law-enforcement-speak for when minors produce pictures of themselves that qualify as child porn.

Harmony may not be looking to press criminal charges against "self-producers," but phrasing it in this manner makes it clear he's willing to pursue anyone else in possession of this so-called child pornography. Law enforcement entities in other states view it the same way and have pressed (along with concerned parents groups and educators) for the creation of laws that make sexting a crime. In doing so, they have completely subverted common sense.

[I]n most states it is perfectly legal for two 16-year-olds to have sex. But if they take pictures, it’s a matter for the police.

Even if these law enforcement agencies decide there's nothing in this pile of cell phones for them, there's still a chance an aggressive prosecutor will still look for something he or she can make stick -- punishing the children… for the children.

If Lowe made an arrest, the case would land with Rusty McGuire, the main prosecutor for Louisa County. McGuire wouldn’t talk with me about this situation specifically, but he expressed his concern more generally about nude pictures of minors landing in the wrong hands: “What do you do? Turn a blind eye? You’re letting teenagers incite the prurient interest of predators around the country,” fueling a demand that “can only be met by the actual abuse of real children.”

So, to keep teens from being abused by sexual predators, we need to smack them around with the same laws meant to target sexual predators? McGuire pushes a threat that exists only in his mind -- one that turns a mostly consensual and incredibly common act into something that has to be addressed by the full extent of the law ("turn a blind eye?"). Failure to do so tips the balance in favor of child predators, who will only be able to satisfy themselves with actual abusive acts. McGuire was praised here at Techdirt earlier this year for his emphasis on education over enforcement when it comes to students sexting, but a few months removed from the positive Slate profile and he's conjuring up law enforcement's favorite boogeyman to justify law enforcement's intrusion into students' personal lives.

Two different law enforcement entities in Michigan are wading into this situation now, armed with enough info to make headlines but little more. Soon, they'll be swimming in cell phones and trying to find a punishment that fits the supposed crime -- or more accurately, trying to find a crime that meets their desire to see someone punished for a bunch of (mostly) consensual behavior.

Staying in a hotel and doing any number of "odd" things. Like not using the hotel's wifi, making requests in person at the front desk, not bringing enough baggage, using entrances/exits other than the one in the lobby area or turning down room service.

“Parents might see sudden personality changes in their children at home—becoming confrontational. Religious leaders might notice unexpected clashes over ideological differences. Teachers might hear a student expressing an interest in traveling to a conflict zone overseas. Or friends might notice a new interest in watching or sharing violent material.”

That's right, parents. If your child seems moody, unreceptive to your religious leanings, enjoys watching violent "material" or wants to travel nearly anywhere in the world (not a whole lot left outside of the First World that can't be described as war-torn), he or she is your family's very own "insider threat."

Monaco understands this might be troubling for parents to hear, but it's all for the best. Remember, parents: only you can prevent terrorism.

“The government is rarely in position to observe these early signals, so we need to do more to help communities understand the warning signs, and then work together to intervene before an incident can occur.”

The nation's counterterrorism forces are profoundly sympathetic for these terrorist-raisers. They truly wish they could be in the position to catch these early warning signs, but our short-sighted predecessors have prevented them from observing first-hand, thanks to obstacles like the Third and Fourth Amendments.

Not to worry. As Monaco points out, the nation has mobilized parents' neighbors against them, providing them with any number of see-something-say-something venues with which to turn in your confrontational, agnostic, R-rated movie-watching hellspawn -- just in case you don't love America enough to do it yourself.

Oh, and P.S.: the DHS reiterates its commitment to flooding small towns with military vehicles and weaponry.

Monaco said that in addition to citizen alertness, the Department of Homeland Security is increasing its partnerships across the country and making hundreds of millions of dollars in grant money available annually to local law enforcement to help improve anti-terrorism security at the municipal and county level.

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]]>just when you thought the 'terrorist twos' were horrible enoughhttps://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20140419/17075126967Mon, 15 Jul 2013 14:01:34 PDTTeen Tweets Stupid 'Threat,' Surprisingly Manages To Avoid Terrorism ChargesTim Cushinghttps://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130715/12190923805/teen-tweets-stupid-threat-surprisingly-manages-to-avoid-terrorism-charges.shtml
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130715/12190923805/teen-tweets-stupid-threat-surprisingly-manages-to-avoid-terrorism-charges.shtml
Another teenager has taken to social media and made an ass of himself by unleashing a severely stupid statement. "Mark" (Twitter handle: @Mark12394995) responded to the George Zimmerman verdict with this moronic tweet.

If Zimmmerman free imma shoot everybody in Zion causing a mass homicide, and ill get away wit it just like Zimmerman

Dispatch started receiving calls, including one from Kansas, the FBI, and Fox News who told Zion they heard it from a caller in Washington.

Mark was hauled off to the police station and questioned by Zion police. Considering recent events, one could be forgiven for assuming Mark is still in jail, facing terrorism charges and unaffordable bail. Oddly enough, the Zion police did a little investigating and realized Mark posed a threat to absolutely no one.

“There is no credibility to the threat. He has no weapons and no access to weapons,” he said.

The police took Mark's "threat" seriously, which isn't a problem. Law enforcement should investigate incidents like these to determine whether there's any seriousness to the threat. But unlike other police departments and prosecutors, no one attempted to pursue excessive criminal charges despite being unable to find anything that indicated the statement should be taken seriously.

The Zion Police still charged Mark with a crime, however -- disorderly conduct, a Class 4 felony. This seems excessive considering the police didn't find Mark's threat credible. Most likely this charge was issued as a result of the switchboard lighting up as "concerned" Tweeters nationwide reported the tweet. If you've got the perp down at the station and the FBI is on the phone, you can't very well let him walk away with nothing more than a "turn on brain before tweeting" warning.

Still, things could have been much, much worse. It's been noted that you can't "fix stupid." However, what we've seen lately indicates you can arraign it on terrorism charges.

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]]>a-rational-response-for-oncehttps://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20130715/12190923805Fri, 28 Jun 2013 08:19:33 PDTYet Another Teen Making Stupid Jokes On Social Media Now Faces Years In JailMike Masnickhttps://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130627/18205323645/yet-another-teen-making-stupid-jokes-social-media-now-faces-years-jail.shtml
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130627/18205323645/yet-another-teen-making-stupid-jokes-social-media-now-faces-years-jail.shtmlTwitter joke trial in the UK, in which Paul Chambers was arrested and tried for making a joke on Twitter about airport closures in which he (very obviously jokingly) "threatened" to blow the airport "sky high" if it wasn't reopened by the time he had to fly. We had the story of Joe Lipari, who was arrested for paraphrasing Fight Club on Facebook in expressing his annoyance with employees at his local Apple store. More recently, we wrote about high school kid Cam D'Ambrosio who was arrested and held without bail for making "terroristic threats," where those "threats" turned out to be some immature boastful rap lyrics that, when actually put in context, didn't actually suggest any threats at all.

The latest one involves Justin Carter, a teenager in Texas who made a joke on Facebook where he and some other kids were hassling each other over the video game League of Legends. One of the kids said something to Justin along the lines of, "Oh you're insane, you're crazy, you're messed up in the head." In response, Justin said:

'Oh yeah, I'm real messed up in the head, I'm going to go shoot up a school full of kids and eat their still, beating hearts,’ and the next two lines were lol and jk.

In context, there is nothing surprising or odd at all about this conversation. It's how teenaged boys communicate. They get on each other and mock each other and the response was actually pretty reasonable. One kid called him insane, and he responded by effectively mocking the claim that he was insane. And then immediately followed it up with lol and jk to cement the fact that he was kidding -- which should have been obvious to everyone anyway, even without the caveats.

But... apparently it was not obvious to the police, or to some very confused woman in Canada who called the police.

Justin Carter was arrested the next month and has been jailed since March 27. He’s charged with making a terroristic threat and is facing eight years in prison, according to his dad.

It turns out that Justin's mother actually posted a comment on our last story about Cam D'Ambrosio, which I didn't see until just now, explaining much of his story as well, and linking to a Change.org petition trying to get her son released from prison.

Once again, this situation is insane. We've reached a point where media hype and moral panics are leading law enforcement to seriously overreact to anything they think is a threat. We have no problem at all with law enforcement checking in on situations like this, but they should quickly realize what it is and move on. To arrest someone for such a joking comment on Facebook, and then to keep him in jail and legitimately claim that it was some sort of "terroristic threat," is shameful and suggests that law enforcement is more interested in building up their "stats" than actually making sure that justice is served and the public is safe.

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]]>not-this-againhttps://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20130627/18205323645Thu, 20 Jun 2013 17:00:00 PDTDailyDirt: More Than Words, Is All I Have To Say...Michael Hohttps://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110602/04262314522/dailydirt-more-than-words-is-all-i-have-to-say.shtml
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110602/04262314522/dailydirt-more-than-words-is-all-i-have-to-say.shtml

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.

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]]>urls-we-dig-uphttps://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20110602/04262314522Mon, 4 Jun 2012 03:03:00 PDTStudy Claims Old People Select Stronger Passwords Than TeensMike Masnickhttps://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120601/13425419174/study-claims-old-people-select-stronger-passwords-than-teens.shtml
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120601/13425419174/study-claims-old-people-select-stronger-passwords-than-teens.shtmlsecure passwords, but it's not too surprising to find out that different demographic segments are better or worse than others at having secure passwords. Though, it may be a bit surprising to find out that a new study suggests that those over 55 pick passwords that are twice as secure as teenagers:

This was based on research on the hashed versions of 70 million Yahoo users, in which a Cambridge research tried to determine the strength of all of the passwords, and see how different groups did. Some of the other findings:

People with a credit card stored on their account do little to increase their security other than avoiding very weak passwords such as "123456". Unsurprisingly, people who change their password from time to time tend to select the strongest ones.

In terms of more specifics:

Password strength is measured in bits, where cracking one bit is equivalent to the chance of correctly calling a fair coin toss, and each additional bit doubles the password's strength. On average, Bonneau found that user-chosen passwords offer less than 10 bits of security against online attacks, meaning it would only take around 1000 attempts to try every possible password, and around 20 bits of security against offline attacks.

That's surprising, because even a randomly chosen six-character password composed of digits and upper and lower case letters should offer 32 bits of security. Bonneau says the discrepancy is due to people picking much easier passwords than those theoretically allowed. He suggests assigning people randomly chosen nine-digit numbers instead, which would offer 30 bits of security against every type of attack – a 1000-fold increase in security on average. "I think it's reasonable to expect people to have the capacity to remember that, because they do it for phone numbers," he says.

Of course, this reminds me (like so much does) of an xkcd comic on how we've all been trained into selecting weak passwords that are hard to remember, on the false belief that they're strong.

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]]>maybe-they-just-follow-instructions-better?https://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20120601/13425419174Tue, 20 Jul 2010 10:37:21 PDT'Ya Dun Goofed': Evidence That Censorship Is Both Needed And Not NeededMike Masnickhttps://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100720/01585110288.shtml
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100720/01585110288.shtml"ya dun goofed"/Jessi Slaughter saga. If you (lucky you) aren't aware of this, and wish to find out (and, I warn you, you may be better off not knowing about this), all the details are at that link. Frankly, after watching the key videos, embedded below, the whole thing really feels faked for the sake of attention. The whole thing is so over the top that it feels like a calculated attempt to get viral YouTube fame.

Either way, whether it's real or not, what's fascinating is how different people have reacted to it. Over at NewTeeVee, there's an interview with Kenyatta Cheese, where he notes that the most fascinating thing about it is that after the video above happened, there was another video chat (via Stickam), where a bunch of the folks who had supposedly been egging Jessi on, really are incredibly nasty to her in a chat, and she totally ignores it. I mean totally ignores all sorts of angry insults. For whatever reason, YouTube has taken that video down due to a "terms of use" violation, so you can't see it, but you can imagine it (I saw it before it was taken down). Basically, a few folks were chatting by video, and in the text chat, people were hurling all of the worst kinds of slurs at Jessi, and she acts in the complete opposite way as in the video above: no crying, no anger. She just focuses on other folks.

As Kenyatta notes:

What's more interesting to me is the fact that just after her very public breakdown, she went back on Stickam a few hours later, completely unfazed by the insults being hurled at her.... The chat is filled with the kind of stuff that parents would call 'bullying,' however, she's totally ignoring it all. Clearly the internet has created a new kind of teenager, able to filter out the kind of noise that would "ruin" the life of folks like Star Wars Kid just years before.

That seemed interesting to me, though, I'm not sure I buy that. First of all, it's a single anecdote involving a single person and (again), I'm still not convinced this is real.

After reading that interview earlier, I had considered doing a post about that claim of the "new kind of teenager," but figured that the "evidence" was so weak, it wasn't worth it. However, I was then amused to look at the submissions for Techdirt, and find a note from reader athe pointing to a professor in Australia who is using the saga as evidence of why the internet should be censored. In other words, he looks at the same videos and comes to the exact opposite conclusion as Kenyatta did.

Where Kenyatta sees a teenager who can filter out bullying and get on with her life, Professor Matt Warren, looks at it and sees a horrible, out of control internet that needs to be censored.

Professor Matt Warren, the head of Deakin University's School of Information Systems, said as long as parents who don't understand the internet kept giving their children access to it, there needed to be ways to control its use.

"You simply can't have free access to the internet," he said.

"It has to be controlled, censored and people have to be held accountable for their actions on it.

"We punish people who drink, we punish people who speed and we have to implement laws to that effect when it comes to the internet."

Thankfully, people are taking professor Warren to task in the comments on that article, noting that censoring Jessi wouldn't have helped. The Australian internet filters certainly wouldn't have stopped the ability of a girl to go online and make some videos. The real issue (if this story is actually real -- but it would apply to others as well), is that this is yet another example of where better parenting, rather than Big Brother governing, would probably help out. And, no, that doesn't mean spying on everything a kid does, but getting parents to at least talk to their kids about what happens online, and what their kids are doing online, along with the risks associated with being online.

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]]>you-been-reported-to-the-cyberpolicehttps://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20100720/01585110288Mon, 2 Nov 2009 13:03:02 PSTTeens Sue School After Being Disciplined For MySpace PhotosMike Masnickhttps://www.techdirt.com/articles/20091102/0316256756.shtml
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20091102/0316256756.shtmlbanned the girls from extracurricular activities for a while and also required that the two girls apologize to the (all male) coaches' board. It also required the girls to undergo therapy sessions. All this because they posted some silly photos online? Beyond the question of whether or not the school even has the right to discipline these students for events that had nothing (at all) to do with the school, the punishment also seems to go well beyond the "crime." Kids do silly/stupid things all the time. And, yes, these days there are cameraphones and social networks that make these things easier to record and distribute, but it doesn't change the fact that kids are kids. I doubt there are many adults out there today who didn't do something silly or stupid as a teen. For those of you who are a bit older, imagine if cameraphones and social networks had been around then? Would you have wanted to have been suspended from school activities? The whole thing seems like a huge overreaction.

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]]>no-free-speech-until-you-graduate?https://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20091102/0316256756Mon, 21 Jan 2008 21:11:00 PSTStop Scaring Teens With The NewsDennis Yanghttps://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080118/114656.shtml
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080118/114656.shtmlmost classify their online news experiences as stressful or a "reminder of the world's dangers." Furthermore, most of the teenagers in the study do not actively keep up with the news. Rarely, if ever, do they go directly to the news websites, but rather end up there from portals and news aggregators, and only then if something catches their eye. The report recommends that news organizations help allay teen angst by making their sites better springboards for conversations and being more focused on solutions and problem-solvers. That said, is this really a problem with online news? Perhaps the way traditional news organizations approach the news is actually the problem. How many teenagers regularly watch the evening news? Perhaps news organizations should study why The Daily Show and Digg are so popular, since both present news in a more relevant, palatable, and oftentimes, more humorous fashion. Maybe it's not the online-ness of the news that is the cause of their waning popularity, but rather, the fact that they are at risk of becoming irrelevant to a new generation of news consumers.

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]]>the-front-page-is-irrelevanthttps://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20080118/114656Thu, 8 Nov 2007 10:33:00 PSTMobile Phones Driving More Kids To Declare Bankruptcy?Mike Masnickhttps://www.techdirt.com/articles/20071108/014054.shtml
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20071108/014054.shtmlTextually points us to a report in Australia claiming that more teenagers these days are declaring bankruptcy and it's because they're racking up huge mobile phone bills that they weren't expecting. It's the type of story that certainly sounds plausible -- after all, we know that mobile phones are popular with kids, and every once in a while you hear about ridiculous phone bills. It isn't hard to put it together and think that there are some irresponsible or careless kids who need to declare bankruptcy because of these bills. However, the article doesn't provide any evidence that this is really happening. The single source providing the info is a gov't bureaucrat, talking about a study done by the government, which found that many young people didn't know how to deal with high bills -- which is quite different from proof that they're declaring bankruptcy. She does claim that financial counseling services are seeing an increase in young people seeking to declare bankruptcy, but the article doesn't talk to any such service or get any numbers on bankruptcies among young people (or even seek to find out that, if there are such bankruptcy, how many are due to high mobile phone bills). That's not to say it's not happening. After all, the story sounds like one that is plausible to many people. It just would have been nice to have seen a little more concrete evidence, rather than offhand conjecture reported as fact.

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]]>gotta-learn-financial-planning-somehowhttps://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20071108/014054Wed, 17 Oct 2007 09:34:00 PDTTeenagers Aren't Afraid Of Strangers OnlineDennis Yanghttps://www.techdirt.com/articles/20071016/102032.shtml
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20071016/102032.shtmlonly about 5 to 10 percent teenagers contacted online by strangers felt scared or uncomfortable by the experience. The study also found that 44 percent of teenagers with online profiles on sites like Facebook and MySpace were contacted by strangers, as compared to only 16 percent of those without profiles. Obviously, as more and more teens increase their digital footprint, the possibility that they may come in contact with a stranger increases in likelihood. And, since safe, positive interactions with strangers take place every day online, it makes sense that these teenagers don't really see it as creepy or scary. That said, hopefully they do understand how to deal with people they don't know online -- not that they should shut off all contact with people, but rather approach them with caution and only reveal personal information when they are sure that the new acquaintance is trusted. In any case, it's only a matter of time before some legislator gets their hands on this study and uses it as "proof" that teenagers are lax in their fear of strangers online.